Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Attention Humanity!

I'm sure that Judd Winick is a really nice guy when you talk to him. I imagine Brad Meltzer is excellent company. I bet that Will Pfiefer did not intend to offend anyone with anything in Amazons Attack.

That does not change the fact that the comics suck and are often loaded with nasty symbolism and messages.

I love my mother, but she raised me on a diet of super-misogynistic fairy tales that were loaded with meaning and cultural tropes that remain with me and a few million other kids to this day.

I know there are critics out there who see writers with serious issues, but really we're looking at a society with serious issues here. They're in the art, they're buried deep in the culture, they've been influencing us since we were born. They surface at the absolute worst times and they need to be pointed out and faced or else we'll never fucking get past them, and we'll be forever doomed to this living hell of cliched, offensive entertainment that saturates our world.

From a less lofty perspective, sometimes nice guys just tell bad stories.

Criticism is my small way of preventing future bad stories, because I know some of you out there are aspiring writers. Slowly but surely, we can fix some of this crap, one writer at a time. At the very least, we can let off some steam in the meantime.

But before we can fix anything, we have to learn to accept Ragnell's First Law of Criticism:

Criticizing the story is not the same as criticizing the storyteller.

Quit popping up in my comments acting like I boiled someone's puppy because I pointed out something read really fucking wrong in their story.

It doesn't do anything to change my opinion. All it does is make me pissed off at you.

15 comments:

Yeah! Wait till she actually boils a puppy to yell at like she boiled a puppy. She's mean, she'll do it...

But onto a serious question. Have you read Winnick's earlier indy stuff (Frumpy the Clown, Barry Ween)? Do you feel they have the same faults? Or is it something that is only in his DC writing. And has it always been that way or do you see him as having gotten worse over the years?

Me I still like his early indy work. But I never really read his GL run, so I can only judge his DC body of work on Outsiders and Green Arrow. And on both of those I think he's actually gone backwards as a writer...

A lot of folks make the mistake of thinking that all criticism is personal. But in the comics world it seems like it happens much, much more. At least partly because there seems to be so much fan entitlement that the criticism often DOES get personal. I know fans who, for example, hate Ron Marz PERSONALLY with a seething white hot passion that is often reserved only for the six-fingered man that killed your father. And they've never met the guy. They only hate him because of his writing. So when you deal with people who don't separate criticism of the person from criticism of the work, they'll take it all as a personal attack.

And Winick? I criticize his DC work because I KNOW the man can do better. Hell, he created the "Juniper Lee" cartoon, one of the best kids adventure cartoons on the teevee with a great protagonist. I'd love to see some of that touch his DC work, but he seems to take his DC work soooooo seriously that it ends up terrible. Sometimes I'm surprised that it's the same guy doing both.

"Criticism is my small way of preventing future bad stories, because I know some of you out there are aspiring writers. Slowly but surely, we can fix some of this crap, one writer at a time. At the very least, we can let off some steam in the meantime."

Oh that's hilarious. I'm sure the next Hemingway is reading this right now. Be ready to take full credit.

Or, of course, there's the small matter of your blog being yet another of the many available to peruse on the Internet. I'm afraid I have to break it to you that you really don't appear to have that many people paying attention, therefore the majority of the world really doesn't care about your spoilt brat Green Lantern rants.

Actually, Kath, it's likely that there are a lot of people paying attention. Many of us are just nodding, filing it away, and then applying it to our behaviour in the future, rather than commenting on it.

And even if it only reaches a few people, those people will hopefully take the ideas to heart and spread them around, so they reach more people.

Granted, I don't really care about any of her GL rants, because I don't read that title, but I've found the rest of her stuff interesting and enlightening.

It's funny - I've read Barry Ween, and love it to *death*, because it has the kind of warped humor that doesn't-take-itself-seriously quality that I wish he brought to his superhero books.

Well, that and consistency of characters - Winnick's style seems to be to warp behavior to serve his story needs, rather than let behavior *drive* story.

And Kath, you made the claim that

Or, of course, there's the small matter of your blog being yet another of the many available to peruse on the Internet. I'm afraid I have to break it to you that you really don't appear to have that many people paying attention, therefore the majority of the world really doesn't care about your spoilt brat Green Lantern rants.

You know, first, I'd like to know where you're getting your numbers. Vague statements like that can be misleading...and quite frankly, an ad hominem attack is usually the last refuse of a dying argument, or something like that.

Well, the majority of the world doesn't care about Green Lantern, or comics, or, I dunno... any given commenter. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about them. Doesn't matter how many, or how few, are paying attention.

Kath,You have to realize something. There are a few ways to change bad behavior.1) You can legislate it to death.2) You can point it out and voice your diapproval (politely, I hope)3) You can sur the sumbitch whut did you wrong.4) You can kill the offender.

Yeah, you can say, "It's Ragnell, ranting about GL" or you can poo poo the ISB for pointing out that the Jonah Hex stories have a awful lot of rape in them. The point that they are trying to make is that entertainment does NOT have to be filled with the standard crutches of weak abused women.

Unless folks like Ragnell & Chris at the ISB voice their concerns, then nobody should expect ANYTHING to ever change.

As far as Ragnell's spolied brat GL rants? As long as she gets to rant about GL and you get to rant about HER, then I get to rant about Jonah Hex's bad timeline and folks that don't cross the street in a perpendicular line.

Free Speech. I like to think of Ragnell as the one who keeps the 'eech' in Free Speech.

Too many comics, books, and movies are loaded with nasty symbolism, not to mention being mean-spirited or outright stupid. It's impossible for one halfway cranky individual to keep up, so I have to pick my battles.

Ragnell, catch "my blog" at MyRomanceStory.com for feminist-style ranting by a female unafraid to also embrace her romantic side. (No, the rest of you, this is not a blatant plug, just an invitation. I mostly talk about issues relating directly to romance. Sometimes about opera. Almost never about the current establishment comic book scene.)

And have you ever looked at SmartBitchesTrashyBooks.com? Great site, does a darn good job of discussing many issues relating to the treatment of women and women's entertainment in the media. It has a large regular group of commenters who make the effort to think before they blog. Thus, not a lot of "STFU" comments wasting Internet space. (And they have a pretty good sense of the absurd.)

We're all doing our bit to improve our civilization, one battle at a time.

All I'm saying is that anyone who thinks they can change the face of writing on a little known blog is pretty big-headed. A number of people could do it maybe, but I doubt it will be because of blogs and I doubt it will be in our lifetime.

Kath said: "All I'm saying is that anyone who thinks they can change the face of writing on a little known blog is pretty big-headed. A number of people could do it maybe,"

Yeah, which is why Ragnell said "WE" can do it, not "I" can do it.

More quotes: "WE'LL never fucking get past them," "WE can fix some of this crap," "WE can let off some steam."

So, your main criticism is... well, based on something you made up, actually. Because Ragnell never claimed that she could change the face of writing All By Herself.

In fact, it seems like you honestly *agree* with Ragnell, Kath! In your last comment you state that "a number of people could do it maybe," and that was pretty much the whole thrust of Ragnell's argument. That a number of people, speaking out, could actually accomplish something. So, way to troll-- it usually works better if you manage to avoid *agreeing with the OP's main point*.

Ah, when trolls get told to pipe down they always fall back on free speech. Doesn't matter if anyone brought it up or not. If you told her to go to hell, she might say you're interfereing with her freedom of assembly.

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Before you approach, you should know 3 things about me: 1) I am a Green Lantern fan. 2) I was a Green Lantern fan in the 90s too. 3) I like to add "the Foul" to the end of my name to let everyone know about my natural temperament.